


Guardian

by Valaks



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Alex Rider Lives, Gen, Kinda, Not an expert on monster fics just winging it, Warning listed just to be safe depending on how people read it, Yassen Gregorovich Lives, also kinda - Freeform, just a touch of angst, monster au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27943643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valaks/pseuds/Valaks
Summary: It was a miracle Alex Rider was alive - the luck of the devil some had said, a guardian angel for the more religious. The line between skill and instinct and luck blurred so often around him that he sometimes wondered how he pulled these things off too but he did and that was all that mattered until the one time he couldn’t finish the job.
Relationships: Alex Rider & Yassen Gregorovich
Comments: 3
Kudos: 76
Collections: AR Fic Exchange 2020





	Guardian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oceanbreeze7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceanbreeze7/gifts).



The pain was unspeakable - white hot and pulsating through him. Alex didn’t even dare look down at his leg. He knew what he would see, and it was far easier to push on when splintered bone wasn’t puncturing skin or at the very least his ankle was turned in a way that it shouldn’t be. Shock had become his biggest ally. And he really should be used to pain by now, to all of this but... three years in and nothing had begun to hurt less. There was no blissful escape from pain. Every morning he woke up sore and aching and massaged out old injuries that ached in his joints and ran his fingers over itchy scars, careful not to break still healing skin open. 

He told himself that he was done, that it was over, not another mission - at seventeen he was too young to hurt getting up every morning but at some point he had started seeing things in ways that he had never wanted to - weighing his life again that of another child and then another agent and then against the world he would be protecting. 

Sometimes it was something simple - human traffickers or arms dealers or drug runners - but more often than not it was some calamity: nuclear weapons, and plagues, and chemical warfare had all fallen to his hand. It was a miracle he was alive - the luck of the devil some had said, a guardian angel to the more religious. The line between skill and instinct and luck blurred so often around him that he sometimes wondered how he pulled these things off, but he did and that was all that mattered. 

That didn’t make it any easier. Not when he needed to get somewhere safe and then some medical attention. In that order. 

Alex had a deep appreciation for the limits of the human body and just how much it could take and still keep going but at some point someone with some decent aim was going to go for the head and he couldn’t survive that. And if he was unfortunate enough to do so, he still wouldn’t be able to get this information to MI6 and the stakes of that were far too high. 

There was no backup if he fell. His partner was already dead, unsurprising as that was. He didn’t appreciate being teamed up especially because every time he did something happened. If he was honest, something always happened. ...but it was nice to not have someone else on his conscience when things went wrong. Not when there were bullets to dodge and risks to take. Jones had assigned him a partner for that very reason. Alex Rider was valuable so long as he was alive. 

Unfortunately, his partner didn’t seem to appreciate that was their role, given they had betrayed him and almost seen to his death via firing squad. And now here he was, limping down a snow-covered road praying for someone to come by and give him a lift out of here.

“Get down.”

Alex hadn't heard anyone approach, but he didn't hesitate. It hadn’t taken him long to learn that it was best not to stand around and find out if the person ordering it was on their side or not. 

A muffled pop had him closing his eyes waiting for the bloom of pain or the rush of heat that he remembered from the first time he was shot. It never came. He hesitantly opened his eyes to see a dead man. 

Alex glanced at his chest to see if he had been shot; if he was dead and just didn’t know it. Last time, he had seen his parents but…

“Get up,” Yassen ordered, jerking his gun in the universal motion for  _ now _ .

“Bit hard.” He gestured to his leg and quickly looked back up, taking the proffered hand to haul himself onto his good leg. 

“Saved me again,” he offered. He wasn’t exactly sure where he stood with Yassen after Cray. Up until thirty seconds ago Alex would say that he stood at least six feet above him at any given time but apparently, he had been wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

Something unreadable flashed across the man’s face. “I prefer to be on this side of the gun while doing it.”

“I bet.” 

Alex had been shot too; he didn’t necessarily want to repeat the experience. 

“You make my job very difficult, Alex,” Yassen said, head tilting to the side. 

“Sorry about that. I’ll try to go easier on you, don’t want to be an inconvenience.” Humor was apparently an ‘inappropriate coping mechanism' according to the psych he’d been referred to by Jones, but he didn’t really have any other reaction on how to deal with dead men. Silence was certainly not the answer - he needed to talk to focus on something else because the pain wasn’t an option, and neither was that gnawing sense of  _ wrong _ . “You should be grateful for the job security, you know?”

Yassen’s lips twitched. “Should I now?”

“Yeah you’d probably be stuck at a desk if it weren’t for me. In boring meetings about personal growth and development.”

“I wouldn’t be in Russia during winter so that would be an improvement,” Yassen returned thoughtfully.

“Isn’t this where you’re from?” It came out more demand than question, but he couldn’t be bothered to sweeten it down. Not when his leg was throbbing from the effort of just standing. 

“Russia is a large country and that was many years ago,” was the simple reply.

Fair enough.

“Where are you from in Russia?”

The man sighed. “Does it matter, Alex?” 

“Yeah, actually, it does.” And it  _ did _ , he hadn’t really gotten to know Yassen all that well and honestly, looking at the odds, this would be the only chance Alex would get. 

“Yasha,” Yassen murmured in correction.

“What?”

“It’s Yasha, not Yassen,” he repeated. His voice was stronger this time, more sure.

And when had that happened? Alex hadn’t ever heard of Yasha. This was the same person? Had to be just by looks and familiarity and the fact that no one else ever came for him. Ever. Yassen did because it was Yasse-  _ Yasha _ , he corrected himself mentally and, incredibly, some tension in the man’s shoulders seemed to ease. Alex wavered, trying to force himself to think through the pain in his leg. Could he... hear him? Surely not. Alex chalked it up to shock. Maybe he’d said something and he hadn’t realized.

“Yasha, then.” 

Yasha nodded. 

“How much do you know about Russian geography?”

Alex frowned. Not that much, just what he had been told for the debriefing of this mission and the two others that had seen his return to the country he had sworn to never step foot in again. Sarov had ruined Russia for him. Even just the barest hint of an accent grated on his ears. He cut his thoughts back to Yassen and tried not to be too hard on himself for the wandering. Blood loss tended to do that.

“Then I suppose we can skip the geography lesson.” 

Probably for the best. “We should go before the rest come for us.”

Yassen made no indication of moving or looking around and the uneasy feeling returned. “No one is coming, Alex.” It should have been comforting but the tone was anything but - clinical and steady as the sea. 

“Well that’s good. Then we won’t have to move too fast.” He pushed every ounce of bravado into that that he could muster. 

Yasha smiled: not the cold smile of a killer but something fond and soft that he would have never felt him capable of. It was somehow more intimidating. “No, we won’t have to move at all.”

“I need to get this back, people’s lives...”

“Alex. Do you really think I don’t know what is on that flash drive or what will happen if it doesn’t find itself in MI6’s hands?” 

“So you are with them?” He hadn’t heard them mention anything about Yassen or a Yasha for that matter; not that he had been listening for it.

“I never said that.” 

“Then who?”

“There are others interested in such things with plans far larger than you and I.” 

Of course there were, Alex wasn’t a naive fourteen-year-old anymore. He had danced on both sides of the aisle before he hit puberty and now he wasn’t sure where he ended up at any given moment on the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ scale. That Yasha wasn’t being forthcoming told him enough about what was about to happen. Alex had seen it enough times watching from behind crates at a warehouse or high in a tree out of the line of fire by a drop zone. He knew the cues.

“Is this it, then?” He didn’t need to vocalize the whole question, it was enough. 

Yasha studied him and he was almost worried he wouldn’t get an answer. Then finally, “Yes.” 

Alex swallowed thickly and looked to the gun; he could sense an air of amusement. 

“I am not going to shoot you, Alex.” 

Great. Hands then, a snapped neck. Fast and less painful if only for the guarantee that he wouldn’t be alive long enough for his brain to process the pain. 

“Not that either, you’re very creative,” Yasha said. His lips were quirking into that small smile again. 

“I learned from the best,” he spat, thanks, in large part to Yasha sending him to SCORPIA after his ‘death’. 

Yasha inclined his head. “They taught you many things. I can guarantee this was not one of them.” 

That didn’t promise anything good. “Will it hurt?” 

“Of course, but you are no stranger to pain.” 

He wasn’t, the shard of bone sticking out of his leg reminded him of how intimately acquainted they were, but that didn’t mean Alex wanted to feel any more than he had to. He had always assumed his death would be painful. Confirmation only made it more daunting. And it wasn’t as if he could get away, not with the state his leg was in. He could kill Yasha, he had his own gun stolen from one of the men he had taken down on his way out of the base but he doubted he would get a chance to use it even if he could try. 

“I don’t want to die,” he said softly.

“Few do.” There was an air of experience there tinged with… regret. “If it is any comfort this isn’t how you were meant to go.”

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “Probably kinder than hauling me back to whoever you’re working for.”

The smile was back and looking far too amused for Alex’s tastes. “Who said I wasn’t to bring you back still?”

“I meant alive.” He didn’t really want to know what would happen to his body. He had seen things. A grave was a lot to ask for in their line of work. Most didn’t get the courtesy. He had just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. 

“Everyone has their time, Alex. You’ve outlived yours a thousand times over.”

He wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean that Alex was any more ready now than he had been the first time a gun had been pointed at him by Yasha. He almost wished he could go out the way he had first met the man. He apparently was going to be denied that kindness if the casual way the pistol was tossed into the snow was anything to go off of. Alex took a steadying breath as the man approached graceful and silent, not even the crunch of snow belying his position; but then there weren’t any footprints, either. 

Panic surged through him as he sought for anything to stave off his execution. “Do you think there’s an afterlife?” he blurted out desperately.

Yasha’s lips twisted as he stopped just before Alex, radiating heat compared to the freezing air around them. 

“Like heaven or hell?” he amended, then winced. That wasn’t what he really wanted to think about now that it was put into words. Not when death was quite literally at his fingertips. Especially not with his track record - his body count had climbed into the double digits before his fifteenth birthday; after that he had lost count. 

Yasha seemed to consider him. “Like the rest of the world, I think it’s a fair bit more confusing than that,” he finally murmured, obviously choosing his words carefully. “I can’t promise that it will be any more peaceful than here, but the pain will be less permanent if that’s any consolation.” It wasn’t, not even in the slightest; he met Yassen’s pitying blue eyes with his own tear-filled gaze. 

“Do not be afraid.” 

Part order, part plea that only made sense as the lithe form of the man blurred and then, defying explanation,  _ unfurled _ .

Alex found himself enveloped in wings and eyes and searing heat. His soul laid bare and found lacking before the faceless perfection before him. Something feathered and firm cupped against his cheek, cashmere soft and burning hot. Alex reached up and held it, his own form unraveled and the heat became more intense, the pain unspeakable, white hot and pulsating through him, every nerve and cell searing - the only blessing was that it was everywhere, that he couldn’t focus on any one place to begin to comprehend the hurt. Instead, he stayed locked with the eyes and wings of the Being, the force for good in its most raw and brutal form that was Yasha and he suddenly understood why It had a different name. 

The heat subsided, but Yasha didn’t move to release him. 

“Where am I going?” It was a thought more than anything, Alex wasn’t sure if his lips moved or if he even had lips to be moved. Fear and awe were the only things he truly felt capable of expressing and those transcended the physical. 

Yasha smiled, more of a feeling than any physical sign. “That is not for me to decide. But for what it is worth, it will be easier going before Him already burned pure. One last gift for you.”

_ Burned pure.  _ Alex couldn’t bring himself to be grateful. Yasha didn’t blink at the slight, just carried on in that voice that made Alex’s bones shudder.

“Maybe soon you will be fighting at my side, or maybe you will fall and be cast to the Enemy.” Yasha’s tone suggested that it mattered very little to him.

And that ached more than anything else. Just another cog in another invisible war; hadn’t Alex had enough of that in his life not to have to live with that fate for eternity? He fought for the words to express it, but his tongue, if he had one, was numb and dumb in the face of what was to come. “I’m scared,” he finally whispered. Small and human, at least for one last time.

“You should be,” Yasha replied simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “But I think we will be seeing each other again,” he said softly, and Alex couldn’t help but relax into that faint reassurance as the heat and the heat light swallowed him whole, and his mind faded to nothing.


End file.
